So far, there aren't any hints that the legendary "Rose Festival Low" -- an area of low pressure that has in the past extended the region's eight-month-long rainy season into June -- will hit Portland this week.

And while some people swear it rains most every year on parade day, the weather service says the chance of getting .01 of an inch of rain on the appointed day is actually 36 percent.

This year, forecasters say to expect partly cloudy skies when you wake up Saturday morning for the parade, with a low temperature of 51. As skies clear, temperatures will rapidly rise. The forecast high is 77.

June can be wet and it can be hot.

On average, Portland can expect one day each year when the temperature reaches or exceeds 90 degrees. There were six in 1970 and again in 2003.

Some of those soggy Junes have been wetter than others, of course. In late May and early June 1876, (years before the Rose Festival began) heavy rains and rapid snowmelt caused the Willamette River to flood parts of downtown Portland.

Several days later, The Oregonian reported that the supply of gumboots was running low, and "rodents are to be seen by the hundreds after night-fall."

By the end of the month, the flooding continued, so much so that "a tub race ... attracted a large crowd of ladies and gentlemen. In the excitement the platform on which the largest crowd stood gave way and precipitated the spectators into the water."

The Columbia and Willamette rivers flooded again in June 1894. Water was 12 feet deep in downtown Portland east of the Skidmore Fountain.

The flooding was so bad in Milwaukie, according to The Oregonian of May 29, 1894, that carp swam over submerged farmland and devoured crops of oats. Farmers armed with pitchforks "threw at random into water and speared scores of fish."

In 1948, the Columbia River rose to its second-highest recorded height, (30 feet at Portland) and, as former Oregonian editor John Terry wrote in 2011, flood waters broke through an old railroad dike flooding Vanport in late May and June, 1948.

The flood was caused by an unusually deep snowpack from snow that fell in April and May, combined with above-average temperatures. According to "The Oregon Weather Book," most of the flood waters originated in British Columbia, western Montana, Idaho and eastern Washington.

It is considered the most destructive flood in nearly 200 years in the Columbia River basin.

In 1980, it wasn't so much that a light rain fell on parade day. The problem was leftover ash from the eruption of Mount St. Helens just three weeks before the parade.

Streets had to be washed down, according to the National Weather Service, and spectators wore dust masks while watching the parade.